


The White Witch's Gift

by SapphireSassenach



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:46:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8963839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireSassenach/pseuds/SapphireSassenach
Summary: A Christmas gift is given to Jamie and Claire during their twenty-year separation. The gift of each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Little Christmas series for everyone. The timing is a little wacky. For Jamie's when he escaped Adsmuir and looks for the white witch. For Claire, it's set during the time when Bree is seven and they get stuck in the car near Christmas.

Prologue

Small drops of water was were the first thing that Jamie felt as he became aware once more. The drops were falling on his shoulders and dripping down his face in small streams against his heated skin.

Everything was in black. The ground, the sky, everything. His body shook with spasms from sharp and blistery gusts of wind plowing him until he almost fell over onto the nonexistent ground. It was as if he were teetering on the edge of an abyss he knew not of, the blackness threatening to consume him as he struggled to regain his footing.

His mind searched for anything to help him see in the night he had found himself in, desperately trying to become aware of his own body again after it felt like it had been ripped inside out. A chill rippled down his spine from the cold and he felt better at once. If he were dead, surely he wouldn’t still get chills.

The sudden awareness of his being allowed him to sense his hands in the darkness, clenching them together as if moving them for the first time, breathing in slowly to help with the panic.

As his heart slowed, Jamie realized that his eyes had been clenched shut tightly in his confusion. Slowly as a newborn, he opened them, inch by inch, half afraid of the scene he would find before him when they opened fully. Where in God’s name was he?

The blackness of the night didn’t disappear, but there was a faint sense of life in the air. Not the void anymore. The moon shone high, casting the path before him in a silver glow.

A movement caught his eyes in the distance. Trees swaying and dancing from the wind. Swaying shadows in the inky night. He realized the rain had been snow melting on his hot body as it swirled around him in hypnotic waves, thrashing around the air as the storm came down with a furry. 

There was something hard under his feet. Solid stone, smoothed and even. He bent down and ran his hand across the icy, black surface, his fingers sticking slightly to the ice as his fingers grazed it. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion, what was it? He had never seen such a thing. A road, he though it must be, but unlike any road he had seen in his 38 years.

He ran his hand across his face, feeling the hard, numb flesh and rubbed his cold fingers together as he stood up, brushing them on his trousers. He was still dressed as he was when he was at the white witch’s shrine. He tried in vain to remember the last thing she had said to him as she clutched her stone.

 

It felt as if his body had been pulled from the inside out and was now wearing unfamiliar skin. With groping fingers, he reached into his jacket pocket, where he kept his most treasured possessions. One of the few things he could hide in the prison. The stones were as cold as the strange road in his hands, but he clutched onto them with all of his might. The only things that could center him at such a time. Small bits of his soul.

He swallowed, looked up, and saw a light. A small glow of yellow amidst black. Only 20 or so yards away from him. The light showed him the outline of something he hadn’t seen before. A dark sort of figure with round things that looked like wheels on a carriage but…thicker and…silver? There was a window in the back of the block that showed him the light outlining two people sitting near one another, huddled around something between them.

Jamie couldn’t distinguish them in the dark and with the wind bringing tears to his eyes from the gusts. He struggled to walk a few steps closer to the outlined figures in the powerful wind that seemed to push against him at every inch. But there was something familiar about those shadowed people and perhaps they could tell him where he was or offer shelter from the cold.

After a few painful minutes kicking through the snow and wind, he came just short of the object, not wanting to scare the people inside or provoke them into thinking he was a threat. As he crept slowly to one of the windows, shielding his eyes from the snow, the light suddenly shined on one of the figures in the strange carriage type thing and a mass of curly hair lit up the inside. 

Suddenly, he remembered the last thing that the white witch had said to him before the world had disappeared.

“Eius revertentur ad eum.” 

Return his soul to him.

My god. It couldn’t possibly be.

Claire.


	2. Chapter 2

The wind whipped against Jamie’s flesh, the harsh seaside air churning his insides like butter. The air was salty and heavy with water. Jamie smelled the sea close by. He knew he wouldn’t have too much time before the patrols started looking, before Lord John started looking for him amongst the heather and the sea.

He looked hard at the small stones in the tiny pool of water that were guarded by the ancient, weathered cross. The shrine of St. Bride hadn’t been too hard for him to find with the words of the dying Duncan Kerr directing him to the white lady’s direction.

But of no use it was to him. Jamie knew it was a false hope to believe that mutterings of a dying man could tell him anything about his lost wife.

Still, tears ran down his cheeks in pure and utter desolation. He fell onto his knees in the heather and crushed his fingers into the earth underneath him. While he escaped the prison, he had dared to have hope, hope smaller than the tiny stones in front of him, but hope it was. Deadly in its dose to some.

Hope had been the only thing that had kept Jamie alive these years past without his wife, family and child. Hope that they were safe, hope that they lived well.

Perhaps it was prison that had made him so dead inside. He had his men, but they were just that, men. He wished for his wife’s soft hair, the smooth lines of her body against his, the spicy, herby sent of her. He wished to simply lie his head in her lap and have those dexterous, nimble fingers comb through his hair, comforting him to sleep.

“Ye should be grateful ye fool that she’s no here,” he whispered to the empty wind.

Though before him was a vista of the stormy blue ocean and the faded green of the land with rocks and dirt and life before him, all he saw was his wife’s face. As clear as day, he saw the glimmer of her whiskey eyes and her sweet mouth curved in a smile she used to save just for him.

The thought of seeing that face again in the flesh was how he put each foot in front of the other on the cold, wet track out to this shrine. The thought of hope.

But she lived only in his memories, perfectly encapsulated forever in his mind, young and beautiful. And his child lived only in his dreams. He pressed his dirty, dry palms hard against his eyes as if to seal the sight of her face forever before him.

There was no notion of time as he sat against the cool ground, picturing Claire holding their babe, singing in hushed tones to him as he closed his blue eyes in peace on her shoulder. His own eyes.

So, the feel of a rough hand against his shoulder almost made him shite himself. His eyes flew open, but not to the Adsmuir guards come to fletch him, but to an old, haggard woman dressed in ratty clothing, looking down at him.

She looked like something from one of the tales his mother used to read him when he was a bairn. The skin on her was wrinkled like no elderly woman he had ever seen before, her fingers like claws, bent and knob like. A shock of white hair peeked out of the faded blue wrapping around her head. Something from a fairytale, he thought. Or a nightmare.

Jamie feared one more minute and she’d expire right in front of him. He wondered with some dark humor how he would explain that to the guards.

Her hand tightened on his shoulder as she took a few steps until she was right across from him. She opened her mouth to speak and he noticed she had no teeth, just reddened gums. How old she must be, he thought to himself.

“Why did ye come here, boy?”

Her voice raspy and cracked as if she hadn’t spoken in years. And perhaps she hadn’t if she lived out here on these moors. His body broke out in gooseflesh from the eerie sound of it.

“I,” Jamie had to clear his own throat before continuing, “I came here in search of something…of someone, but she’s no here.” 

He felt as if he had a slippery tongue, that he must speak the truth and nothing else. The woman’s pale, almost translucent blue eyes appraised him for a moment. She quirked her wrinkled mouth to the side and nodded for him to continue while sitting down in the grass across the small pool of stones, searching for something.

Jamie didn’t like talking about Claire to anyone, mostly because he could never explain her to anyone, but the old woman compelled him to as if he had no choice.

“Claire…my wife. She was the one I was looking for,” he swallowed hard and glanced back up at the woman, but she was busy gazing at the stones. It was the first time he had spoken her name in years.

“I heard of a white witch from a dying man and that’s what they used to call her. She was a wise woman, but I lost her…years ago now…”

Jamie told the tiny woman everything. From the day he met Claire to the day he lost her. His heart felt like a weight had been taken off him, as if the burden of keeping her to himself all these years was finally a little lighter.

He had been so engrossed in his memories, the story of their love, that he failed to notice the woman mumbling over a stone she had chosen, a rough looking bit of amethyst, still wet from the small pool.

A strong blush spread across Jamie’s face as he watched the woman rub the stone between her fingers. Had he blathered on without her even sparing an ear? Perhaps, she couldn’t hear well. 

Of course, she canna hear well, ye daftie, he shook his head. She has to be nearly 100. 

He cleared his throat lowly and went to stand up, but a cold, oily hand grabbed his forearm like a snake striking its prey. He was shocked by the strength of the grip; it was almost painful as she squeezed his wrist.

Then, her head snapped up and those strange eyes pierced right through him as the wind howled around them, making the grass almost flat with its power. A chill went up his spine as he looked at her, wondering for the first time if she was blind as well. The eyes weren’t seeing him, that was certain. But they were seeing something very far away from here.

“Would ye like to her her again, yer wife?” 

The eyes focused back to the present and to him as the wind began to pick up in earnest with the first drops of rain starting to fall on his flushed face. It almost sounded like screaming.

His mouth gapped open like a fish as he searched for an answer. But the old woman was impatient and she dug her nails into his forearm, so hard he winced.

“Aye,” he croaked from his parched throat, dry from all the talking. 

She shook her head from left to right and brought the nails, which he was shocked to see bright with his blood, to the stone in her other hand.

She continued to mumble and chant in Latin, Jamie thought, but not the kind he learned as a child.

The sea churned under the harsh wind that only seemed to get more powerful as the woman’s voice got louder, he heard the waves crashing like thunder against the rocks. The force of it was so great, he had to get a firm hold on the ground. It made his eyes water and hurt his face to stare into it. But the old woman never moved an inch.

Suddenly, she grabbed his hand again and place the bloodied rock into his palm, wrapping his fingers tight against it.

“Don’t lose it. Ye have two days.”

And then as he held on tight to the small stone, he heard one last rough phrase spoken from her mouth, but it sounded like it came from far away. And then the earth disappeared underneath him and he fell towards oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

The snow was coming down fast and in heaps as Frank whispered Dickens to Bree’s now sleeping form. The Oldsmobile was still stalled as we sat on the side of the road awaiting rescue from the brutal blizzard we were in.

Frank wouldn’t admit it, neither would I aloud, but I was scared. The inside of the car was already icy, even with our combined body heat. If the blizzard lasted into tomorrow, the roads may still be scare. A shiver went down my spine at the thought of still being stuck in the car with the snow pilling higher and higher.

I shook my head slightly to dispel the negative thoughts. It was almost Christmas, people would be traveling and someone would be along.

Breathe, Beauchamp.

I watched as my breath swirled in a cloud in front of me and then glanced down and watched my daughter’s angelic face sleep. Even in the darkness, her vibrant red hair shined brightly like a fire smoldering with sparks and flames. I reached over and brushed a stray curl from her cheek, pushing away the thought of doing a similar action to the person who gave her that hair.

I closed my eyes and shook my head against the seat, instead letting Frank’s voice telling his stories sooth me until I could find a little peace inside with my head resting against the hard interior of the car.

I didn’t know how long I dozed for, but I suddenly came awake with a jerk and gasp. My heart was beating like a hummingbird’s wing and my breath was ragged as if I had just run a mile.

I placed my hand against my chest as if to slow my heart as I fought to catch my breath. My mind search back to the dizzying dream I had been having, half lost in my mind, half grounded in reality, as it was with dreams when the mind hasn’t fully drifted off.

Jamie, I thought. It was only dreams of him that made my body come alive in this way. But I almost always remembered them. Remembered his touch and carried it with me as I came awake, not willing to let him go and enter the real world again.

I glanced over to see Frank and Bree nestled together, sound asleep. I looked out the window to see the wind had died down just a little and the moon gave the night a little more light than before.

Something caught my eye from outside. A dark mass against the sliver moonlight standing next to the car, peering in.

I don’t know why I didn’t scream or awaken Frank. Something in my bones told me not to. I couldn’t see anything but that it was a man. And instinct pulled me to open the door. 

I slowly moved my hand to the handle of the door, careful to not jostle Bree. Adrenaline spiked through my veins and made my head slightly dizzy.

The door eased open without a sound and I closed it behind me as quickly as I cloud as to not let more cold air in than necessary.

My back was turned towards the car, but I could hear the rough breath coming in pants behind me. It made every hair on my body stand and my nipples tighten. 

Slowly, I turned to face the faceless man who seemed to call me outside to him. The first thing I noticed was the height and then the hair. The same shocking color I was admiring on my daughter earlier. And then the face. The last thought I remember having was seeing the blue eyes that I had longed to see for the last eights years and the same eyes that haunted my dreams and roused me from the deepest of despair.

Jamie.

 

 

The next thing that Claire became aware of was a warm sensation against her skin. Her eyes popped open, starling Frank, who had been apply a warm compress to her forehead.

She blinked groggily against the harsh light from the beside table and sat up on one elbow, pressing her hand against her head.

“What happened?” She asked.

All she could remember was seeing that vision of Jamie outside in the blizzard and then…nothing.

Frank put a hand on a large bump on her forehead and frowned at her.

“I have no idea,” he said with a concerned look, a look one gives to a patient who has a screw lose. “I woke from a loud bang outside the car and the next thing I see is you passing out in the blizzard.”

“I remember that much,” she said while bringing her feet out of bed and gratefully grabbing the cup of steaming tea on the nightstand.

Frank got up from the bed and looked outside to the still loud winds and snow.

“Well, after that, I picked out up and tried to warm you in the car. Thank god Bree didn’t wake up, you would have scared her,” he shook his head again, disapprovingly. 

“God knows what compelled you to go outside,” he turned his head and cocked it in search of an explanation, but after I hesitated, he simply tuned back towards the window. 

“Then, I managed to get the car started with some help from a car driving by and you never budged when I brought you in the house or upstairs, you must have bumped your head when you fell.”

He came back over to the bed and looked at the small bump with slight amazement. “It shocks me that you didn’t spilt your head open with that wind and icy road.” 

“Hm,” she mumbled while trying to picture the image of Jamie again. Maybe she was finally losing her mind.

“Hm, indeed,” Frank said while rubbing his hands on his pants. He was wearing the clothes he usually wore to University. 

He noted her glance and got up, moving to where his jacket was against the chair. “There was a fire and some professors need to go and assess the damage. Some of my works may have been lost.”

She looked around the room while his head was turned, but saw nothing unusual. A slight wave of disappointment ran through her.

“You’ll be alright? Bree is sleeping in her room. I feed her when we got back and she’s out for the count.”

He slipped on his gloves as I moved to get up to the bathroom. “I’ll be fine, you go ahead, but be careful, the storm is still strong.”

He smiled at little at her before tipping his hat and walking into the hall. Claire let out a sigh of relief when she heard the front door close and the car start.

She went into the bathroom and splashed some cool water onto her face. Right now she needed something to anchor her and maybe something for her head.

A strange feeling came over her as she walked down the small hall towards Bree’s room. She walked a little faster, feeling silly, but needing to see her daughter.

Slowly, she eased the door open and sighed when she caught the first glance of her sleeping form and then her heart stopped for a moment when she saw who was sitting on the bed next to her.

“J-Jamie?”

His head snapped around and met her wide gaze with one of his own. Her knees suddenly went weak and her vision blurred. She caught onto the side of the door for support and the next thing she knew; she was pressed against a warm chest.

Immediately, she pulled back and looked into the face of her ghost. He was the same, a little older, thinner and with shorter hair, but he was the same. If he was a ghost, would he not be preserved perfectly the way she remembered him?

“Am…am I dead?” She whispered as she looked into his blue eyes and relinquished her body to his slightly shaky hands. Ghosts didn’t shake, did they?

His eyes were shimmering with unshed tears as he pressed his forehead against her own, locking their eyes together in a enchanting gaze.

“No, mo nighean donn, ye are very much alive.”

His voice was the same and it brought tears to her own eyes as she pressed both of her hands tight against his cheeks, feeling his skin in wonderment. 

“Wha…how?” She croaked with a high pitched sound that made Bree rustle in her sleep. 

Jamie caught the movement and smiled softly at her slumbering form before he picked Claire up in his strong arms and brought her back to her bedroom and sat her down gently on the bed. All the while Claire’s head spun and she reached to pinch her forearm hard to ensure that she wasn’t still dreaming. 

When he stood back up straight after setting her down, it was the first time she noticed he was wearing clothes from his time, pants and a shirt with an old jacket around his shoulders.

His straightened his spine and grabbed her hands in his, formally, as they did when they recited their wedding vows so long ago. 

It felt as though she couldn’t get enough air and he looked at her with warm, sympathetic eyes, seeing her struggle.

“Claire, I dinna mean to frighten ye. You almost stopped my heart when ye collapsed by the car,” he closed in eyes while taking a deep breath and smiled a little. “I thought I had killed ye for sure.” 

He sat on the bed next to her, giving her a little room. “You…that was you then? By the car? I wasn’t seeing things?”

Jamie laughed softly and brushed a piece of her hair back, curving his long fingers against her pale cheek. “Ye were seeing things, but no things that werena supposed to be there.” His eyebrows drew together in thought. “Or maybe ye were, you’re the only one who can see me it seems.”

Claire blinked stupidly at him for a moment and for that moment all she did was take him in. Her lost love, somehow restored. Did she really care how? Maybe she was going crazy, but if that meant she could see Jamie again, she was certainly willing to pay the price of her sanity.

“Oh, Jamie!”

She flung herself at him and he got his arms up just in time to catch her. And for an unmeasurable amount of time, they clung to each other as if one let go, the other would surly die from heartbreak. It was a miraculous thing, they felt as they twined their bodies together, wrapping every limb and finger they could around the other. It was as if all the missing and broken pieces of their souls were being forged and stitched back together as they pressed their hearts against one another, fixing the sharp edges of jagged torn hearts.

 

 

“A white witch? So, there is a real white witch, then?” 

Jamie chuckled and brought her closer to him under the thick blanket. They were sitting on the sofa in the living room, sipping tea and learning about each other all over again.

The shock of seeing him had not worn off, but both didn’t want to spend the little time they had in shock. Instead, giving thanks for the Christmas miracle they had been given. The so-called witch Jamie had talked about said he only had two days and the first day was almost up.

It all seemed very much impossible and dreamlike, but when did their lives together ever seem normal?

It had seemed fate was on their side once more because Frank had called an hour ago saying that they were snowed in at the university and he wouldn’t be home tonight. Claire felt a small pang of guilt being thankful that he was stuck, but pushed it away, locking it up. She could feel shame after Jamie wasn’t here anymore.

Even the thought made her tear up, but she pushed it aside as he cradled her against his big chest. Though he was thinner, his body was still as blissfully warm as she recalled.

“Aye. A shock of white hair,” he shook his head in wonderment. “Scared me half to death when she showed up.”

She pressed her hand against his chest, feeling his heart beating, making sure he was really here and in her arms.

“And then the ground shook and you were just…here?”

He scratched his head and smiled at her, eyes twinkling. “Well, I woulnda say it wasn’t the oddest thing that’s ever happened to me, but maybe no so strange.”

He cupped her face like it was a crystal goblet, rubbing his thumbs against the apples of her cheeks. “But ye have traveled through time, mo nighean donn. Maybe it should surprise you the least.” 

Claire suddenly realized what this meant with a feeling like a lightening bolt had struck her. “But you survived Culloden, that means I can find you again! I can go back and take Bree! We can be a family.”

Her heart soared for a brief moment but Jamie was already shaking his head. “No, you canna, Claire.”

“But-,” he cut her off before she could finish her protest, he placed a hand gently over her mouth.

“When ye were sleeping and I was sitting with Brianna, I thought ye might come up with that idea, Sassenach. But ye canna come back.”

Her heart dropped and rejection spread through her blood like a wildfire. Was there something that he didn’t want her to know about in his new life? 

“Its not that I dinna want ye, Claire. Dinna be daft,” he spoke when he saw her face, reading it like a book. He brought her closer to him, holding her against his chest like a most treasured gift. 

“Think of it for a moment, Sassenach. I will go back to prison and Gods knows how long I will be there for and I canna imagine what will happen after that,” he looked ahead as if to see his future in the past.

“Ye can’t bring the lass when I can’t provide for the both of ye. I wouldn’t be able to see ye and I won’t have you living in such a dangerous time when I can’t know how ye fare.” 

“But,” she started again, “We might be able to get you out! We could go somewhere, anywhere!”

He laughed gently against her, which sparked a little flame of anger in her.

“I dinna doubt you could quite possibly pull something off like that. Ye have before, but no. They will be hunting high and low for me and if they don’t find me, they will go to Lallybroch and raise hell.”

Claire eyes watered as hope sunk in her chest. Jamie put a finger under her chin and made her meet his soft eyes.

“Claire, ye must promise to not come to me unless ye know for certain that it’s safe. Wait until the lass is grown and can make the decision to look for me herself.”

Claire swallowed thickly and feebly nodded against him. He was right, damn him. 

“We have these days, Claire. Let us not waste this gift.”

And then he leaned down to kiss her. It was a slow building kiss, like a smoldering fire, building and building until it reached its peak of blaze.

It felt as those she was lit on fire. Her skin burned where it touched him and a similar fire was burning between her legs. Without breaking their connection, she leaned up and straddled him. Her hair falling around them like a veil, shielding them from the world outside.

She had no idea how this business of his traveling worked. It was only her that could see and touch him. But she took solace in the feel of his touch and hoped it would be enough for what came next.

He grabbed her hips and bucked up against her. She smiled against his lips and traced his bottom one with her tongue. It had only been a matter of time before it came to this. 

Jamie had sat with Bree for the hours she was passed out. Memorizing her, talking to her in whispers, though she could not hear him. And then after they had reunited, Claire and Jamie were content to just sit with each other. Leaning the news ways and smiling when they recognized the old.

Perhaps things hadn’t gotten too carried away because Claire was scared Frank would be home, but now the didn’t have to worry about that and the thought sent ripples of desire through her and she clutched Jamie closer to her.

He cupped her breast and she thought she may implode if he wasn’t inside her that very second. She almost moved to her hands to the excited bulge she felt under her, but she stopped herself and pulled back gasping.

“What, no,” Jamie muttered and brought his lips to her neck, making her weak in the knees.

“We can’t here,” she gasped against him. “Bree might wake.”

Jamie reluctantly pulled back from her, eyes dilated and face flushed. “Bed,” he whispered. “Now.”

And Claire wasn’t about to argue that.


	4. Chapter 4

The clutched each other like thieves sneaking through the house. Talking in giggles and hushed whispers as they climbed the stairs together. They both felt the rush of excitement from their little secret and the giddiness of the knowledge that they were about to make love for the first time in nearly a decade.

They were almost through the bedroom door before Jamie stopped in the hallway.

He let go of Claire’s hand and moved towards Bree’s room.

“I…I just want to kiss her goodnight,” he whispered and Claire could tell, even in the dark, that his ears were slightly red.

Claire smiled encouragingly at him and they both walked to their daughter’s room for the first time ever together.

The nightlight from Bree’s room cast them all in a pink haze, almost dreamlike in its ambience. Jamie walked to her sleeping form and knelt down by the bed, placing his hand on the crown of her head, cradling her head between his hands like the gift she was to him.

“Goodnight, sweet lass. Have good dreams and know that ye are safe and cared for always.”

He reached down and kissed her forehead in the most heartbreakingly gentle way. 

“Even though ye canna see me, I will always be with you,” he touched her heart gently, “just here.”

Claire leaned back against the doorway, silent tears on her cheeks, running down to her neck. She scrambled to wipe them away before Jamie saw, he would look at her with an exasperated smile.

He turned and smiled at her, giving Bree one last kiss before walking over to where Claire stood.

“Come,” he compelled, tugging her arm into the hall. “Let me love ye, Sassenach and let you love me, too.”

Jamie didn’t remember how they made it to the bed, he didn’t even really know when Claire lit the fireplace, but he did remember the moment when she bit his lip and scratched at his clothes. The lioness was coming out to play and Jamie’s hands shook in anticipation of her.

Claire was deft and quick as she unbuttoned his pants, but stopped suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” Jamie asked, trying to keep the longing and desperation out of his voice.

Claire’s eyes were trained on something in his pocket. A bit of green he had picked when on the quest for the white witch.

Tears pickled in Claire’s eyes once more as she saw the green peeking out of his pocket. Watercress.

It was silly, but seeing it made her realize how much he must have thought about her, how much he missed her. She knew it already, but seeing the physical reminder of her care and knowledge was enough to make her knees weak. He remembered. 

She reached out gently and touched the plant, wondering how it could travel through time and space and not wilt.

Jamie smiled slightly at her, moving his thumb down her cheek in answer.

I know, he said. I remembered, he said. You never really left me.

The ever present tears flowed over again, but were quickly chased away by the feel of soft lips against her cheeks, erasing them, replacing them with sensation.

“I love you,” she gasped into his neck between desperate kisses. “I love you.”

He only pressed her tight to his body in response, needing to have her closer, to feel her body against his as if to ingrain it into his memory and preserve the feeling when he could no longer touch her. 

Their clothing disappeared after that in a blur. First his jacket, torn off in a hast. Then, her thick sweater, pulled slowly over her head as he touched every inch of newly exposed skin as if he had never felt a woman before.

At last they laid down on the fluffy rug in front of the now roaring fire.

As Claire ran her hands up and down Jamie’s arms, she felt the welts on his wrists from the shackles of prison. Deep feeling overwhelmed her by the evidence of his sacrifice, not only to her and their baby, but to his people.

She was careful not to rub the flesh the wrong way as she brought one wrist up to her mouth. She felt the raw flesh with her lips as she kissed the marks gently and passionately as if to show him he was loved and whoever had hurt him this way had done a great injustice to a kind man.

“Don’t fret over it, Sassenach,” Jamie whispered against her hair while bringing his wrist away from her lips to rest on the curve of her hip. “Just be here for now.”

Pushing her grief aside, she did just that. She brought her lips up to his for a fiery kiss, his mouth crushing hers as they sought to envelope one another. His fingers twined in her hair and her hands clutched his shoulders close to her naked body, feeling the scratch of the hair on his chest against her sensitive breasts.

His tongue danced with hers, exploring territory once conquered, but now forging a new path, feeling every old crevice and every new scar 

She laid down on her back, relishing the comfort of the plushy rug while Jamie stretched out on top of her. Jamie kissing the silver marks on Claire’s stomach from Bree’s tumbling in the womb. She wept at the deep scar on his thigh from Culloden and felt the smoothness of his upper thighs. She followed the blue, pulsing line of his artery to the center of him while he trembled and placed his hands deep in her curls.

And when she took him, those hands shook and a deep blush spread across his body from the immense feeling.

He took his time with her body, making it hum and sing as such he used to do everyday. He nuzzled her thigh and kissed her toes, making her giggle.

He nipped at her pale, white skin, taking pride in the red mark that formed before his eyes. He inhaled her earthy, feminine perfume and it made him dizzy. He relished in the sounds she made as he loved her.

It was them trying to savor the time that they had together, torn with the feeling of not being close enough, fast enough. The struggled to find a rhythm, but then all was simple the moment he eased her legs apart.

The language they had been trying to remember came back to them and then sighed when at last Jamie came into her body.

They both melted like jelly and began the rhythm they had started so long ago, one that could never be forgotten.

“Oh, Claire,” he whispered against her skin. “God, Claire.”

She only clutched him tighter and held on as he rocked against her, wrapping her legs around him. The first few thrusts were gentle, but it feed an ever hungry fire between them that left the demand for more. The hunger of the lost years was too much and they came together harder. Jamie’s thrusts powerful and harder. Claire’s hips rocked faster and pulled him tighter as he came into her deep again and again until she trembled against him, thighs locking hard against his.

The trembling in her started the release in Jamie and he poured himself deep inside her, deep enough so that even when he was no longer here, she would still have some of him inside her.

They were quiet for a long while after, simply holding each other, unwilling to move an inch that might disrupt their union. The last thing Claire remembered was Jamie whispering in Gaelic as the fire crackled and popped next to them.

Jamie watched her sleeping face as she drifted off, their bodies still tangled around each other. An overwhelming feeling of safety and love came over him, a feeling so foreign in the years apart from her and so peaceful, he to fell asleep despite his efforts to stay awake to memorize her face once more.

And for those blissful moments of rest, their minds forgot their imminent parting and remembered their brief years of peace once more.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last part of the mini series. Enjoy.

Morning light woke them much later, not quite sunlight as the storm still went on, caging in most of the Boston area to their homes. And Frank, she thought briefly, but decidedly put that thought away once more.

The smell of sour ash was strong, but the smell of Jamie was stronger.

Claire’s cheek was pressed flat against his sternum and his hand was cupping her breast. Smiling, content he wasn’t a dream, she lazily brought her finger down, sliding across chest hair and down his pelvis, wrapping around his morning excitement. 

A deep chuckle came from his chest and she felt the pleasant vibrations against her.

“Good morning to ye too, Sassenach,” he said, grinning down at her.

She smiled back at him and was about to reply when the sound of footsteps in the hall made her freeze.

“MAMA! I’M HUNGRY!” Bree exclaimed as she tried to turn the locked door in the hall.

Jamie smiled at the interruption and kissed her cheek. “Go feed the wee beast, then.”

“She is quite a little monster when not fed on time,” Claire agreed while sitting up and reaching for her clothes as Jamie watched every movement.

She dressed quickly and Jamie did as well. Claire wondered briefly as she pulled her sweater over her head if others could see his clothes while not on him since they couldn’t see him all together.

“MAMA! Please, I want PANCAKES!”

Claire nodded at a grinning Jamie. “Can’t you tell whose daughter she is?”

A few minutes later Bree was shoving pancakes drenched in maple syrup and butter into her mouth while Claire cleaning up the kitchen and Jamie watched his oblivious daughter with utter love and fascination.

He had been wide eyed at the stove and the fridge, but decided he didn’t want an explanation for anything he saw.

“My time here is for you and Brianna, not to wonder at the future,” he had whispered to her, though Bree could not hear him if he had shouted. 

“Mama? When is Daddy coming home?”

Bree looked at her with a sticky face and her real Daddy’s eyes. Claire glanced at Jamie to see his reaction to the word Daddy, but he showed no emotion.

Claire wet a warm cloth and reached over to wipe the syrup from her daughter’s face. 

“I don’t know, lamb. I think he will be stuck at his work until tomorrow from the snow. The radio said the snow would stop tonight.”

“But tomorrow is Christmas!” Bree wailed, stomping her feet in the air.

“I know, darling.”

Bree grumbled to herself for a moment, completely unaware as Jamie ran a hand through her thick red hair. 

“I’m going to go read the new book he got me,” she said with an air of excitement and pushed back her seat.

“Bree!” Claire called, trying to detain her, but she was already halfway up the stairs.

Claire sighed and put the dishrag down and walked over to where Jamie stood, his arm still extended in the air. 

She wrapped her arms around him tightly as if to replace the warm embrace of his child.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his chest. “I’ll go fetch her.” 

“No,” he mumbled in her hair. “Let her be, I’ll go up and see her in a bit.”

They spent the rest of the day talking and simply enjoying the company of each other. They sat once more on the sofa in the living room, letting the fire and peace of the moment overwhelm them.

“It’s not that I’m so grateful that you came to me, Jamie. To us,” she hesitated and felt him stiffen in response.

“No! I love that you’re here,” she placed a warm palm on his heart as he looked at her. “I just-it seems almost cruel, to give us only two days and then eternal separate again.”

Her voice broke on the word separation and clutched him closer.

“You’re a greedy wee thing, hm?”

He smoothed down her curls, disheveled from their night together, wrapping a finger around one coil.

“Claire, if we only ever get these two days, it will be enough. For years, I have longed for just one more chance to see yer smiling face and feel yer body against mine.”

He rubbed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “And to know if our child lived. I could no ask for more and it this is what we are given, I am forever thankful.”

Claire thought she saw a simmer in his eyes as he looked at her with deep emotion. That was one of the things she missed the most, being apart of something bigger than herself. And their love had always seemed to transcend the usual.

She pressed her chest against his and listened until she felt their hearts beating in unison. Content that somehow, someway, they would find each other again. 

 

 

“And then they lived happily ever after! The end!” Bree cried with joy as she finished her book aloud. 

She was sitting between Jamie and Claire on the sofa, unknowing that she was squished between her two biological parents. 

Jamie glowed with pride the whole reading, beaming when she got through big words and smiling when she did different voices. His eyes glistened with joy at her and rubbed Claire’s hand where they were next to each other over Bree’s head.

Her red curls bounced as she let out a big yawn and put her head against Claire’s shoulder in exhaustion.

“Bed time, darling?”

She shook her head against her, but Claire could feel her body growing heavy as her eyelids drooped.

“Santa doesn’t come unless little girls are in bed asleep,” she chimed softly while silently laughing at Jamie’s earlier reaction to Santa.

“Well, I’ll tell ye, Sassenach, nothing seems very jolly about an old, fat man sneaking into your house through the chimney,” he had said while looking suspiciously at the picture of Bree sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall. 

My statement, however, got Bree’s attention and her eyes popped open wide with terror at the thought of missing out on her presents.

She scrambled off Claire’s lap and dove for the stairs. “Don’t worry, Santa! I’ll be asleep in only a minute!”

Claire and Jamie laughed at her running form and the sound of the door slamming shut a moment later. 

“She’s so smart, mo nighean. You are such a good mother.” 

Claire blushed a little and moved over to lie against his chest. “She’s a good girl, that makes it easier.”

Claire snuggled in and then sighed a little. “I need to go make sure she brushes her teeth and washer her face. Come with me?”

Jamie smiled and kissed her palm, “wouldn’t miss it.”

After Bree had been properly put to bed and the presents were placed under the tree, Jamie and Claire were nose to nose in bed, hearts still slowing from their recent amorous activities.

“Claire?” Jamie asked tentatively while rubbing his nose back and forth against hers, making her giggle.

“Yes?”

“Will ye…will ye ever tell her about me? Not now…but later,” he voiced rushed out in a hurry as if to say the words so fast, she might not understand. 

Her heart broke with tenderness at the half hope, half pain he carefully formed his words with. 

“Of course I will, Jamie. When the time is right, she will know all about her stubborn, red-haired, loving, Scottish father,” she smiled as a tiny speck of relief crossed his face. 

“Aye, well,” he smiled and leaned down to kiss her and then kiss her silver ring. His ring.

A few hours later, the three of them were all on Claire’s bed, nestled together. Jamie had gone to fetch Bree to be with them, the only time they would ever sleep together.

Claire felt each tick of the clock as if it were a beat of her own heart. It wouldn’t be long now. They had said their goodbyes, or rather agreed not to. For them, it wasn’t goodbye. They knew deep down that fate would bring them back to each other again. They had Faith.

Still, it didn’t make parting easier.

“Happy Christmas,” she whispered through thick tears as she buried her head into his chest, laying her right hand on Bree’s sleeping back and the other tightly around Jamie’s chest, as if her arms would be strong enough to keep him against the inevitable call of time.

“Happy Christmas, Claire,” he pressed his lips tightly against her forehead and held his girls close, knowing that whatever came for him, there was no place he would rather be. He let the peace of the moment drift him off to sleep as he dimly heard the clock strike midnight. 

And on Christmas morning, Claire woke to only one person sleeping beside her. Bree was sleeping on her back with her hands placed on top of each other on her stomach. The newly emerged sun made her see a flash of green right next to Bree’s sleeping form, where Jamie had been only a few hours before.

A single piece of watercress.

With shaky hands, Claire picked up the small token that was the only evidence of his recent time with her and pressed it against her lips like her lover’s touch.

“Da mi basia mille.”


End file.
